Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. If you act quickly, you may be able to recover photos from a Canon camera using file recovery software. Read on and we will demonstrate how to perform this recovery and get your valuable photos back.
Is It Possible to Recover Data from a Canon Digital Camera?
Yes, it is possible to recover lost data from a Canon digital camera. Through the use of Canon photo recovery software, you can recover photos that you thought were lost for good. The key is to act quickly before using the camera or its SD card to take more photographs.
💡 When you delete a picture from your camera, it is not immediately removed from the storage media. Instead, the space the photo occupied is made available for future use to save a new image. Until the original photo is overwritten by a new one, it can be recovered.
In some cases, you may be able to recover photos from the camera’s internal storage or memory card directly from the device’s installed software. Many photo apps include a recently deleted folder that holds deleted images for a set amount of time, usually something like 30 days. If your camera’s software has this feature, you should look here first for deleted photos.
Even if the lost photos are no longer in the recently deleted folder, you can still restore them with data recovery software as long as they have not been overwritten. For this reason, it is very important to not use the SD card or camera until you have recovered the lost photos.
A reliable data recovery solution can restore lost photos from a wide variety of Canon cameras including these models:
- 30D EOS;
- EOS 5D Mark II;
- EOS 5D Mark III;
- EOS 5D Mark IV;
- EOS 1200D Rebel;
- EOS Rebel T3I;
- Canon EOS 7D;
- Canon EOS R5;
- Canon EOS R6;
- Canon EOS RP;
- Canon EOS Rebel SL3;
- Canon EOS Rebel T6;
- Canon EOS 80D.
Scenarios that Result in Data Loss from a Canon Camera
Losing data from a Canon camera can occur for a variety of reasons. Here is an overview of the most common reasons and potential solutions that can recover your data.
| Data loss reason | Description | Solution |
| Accidental deletion | Someone mistakenly deleted important images | Look in the recently deleted folder or use data recovery software. |
| Problem transferring photos from camera to computer | Data transfer interrupted before completion | Retry the operation. Photos should still be resident on the camera’s storage. This may indicate the SD card will soon fail Recommended action is to backup the SD card and use the backup to restore the data. |
| Formatting an SD card by mistake | Accidentally formatting the wrong SD card | Recover the lost photos with photo recovery software. |
| Canon firmware corruption | Firmware corruption when updating your Canon camera | Data recovery software can scan the SD card and recover missing photos. |
| Virus or malware infection | Connecting the camera to an infected computer | Virus deleted files can be retrieved by data recovery software. |
| Physical damage | Broken camera or SD card | You need to use a data recovery service to attempt the restore. |
| SD card become raw | File system has become corrupted | Data recovery software can recover the files in RAW format. |
| SD card not shown in explorer | SD card not recognized when connected to the computer. | Try to assign a drive letter or use SD card recovery software. |
| Files not visible in Explorer | Files cannot be accessed from a recognized SD card. | Try the attrib command or use data recovery software. |
Canon Photo Recovery using a Data Recovery Software
As mentioned previously, data recovery software can be used to retrieve lost or deleted photos and videos from a Canon camera or external storage such as an SD card. Before we demonstrate the details of using recovery software, let’s take a look at the factors that go into choosing reliable file recovery software.